It's all fun and games when something like 'The Daily Show' or a site like The Onion picks on the world, creating fake news for the sake of humor. When spammers and phishers do it, though, it's not quite so funny, but that's exactly what these slimy e-mail predators have been up to lately by using sensationalist fake news headlines to try to get you to install their sleazy applications and divulge information about yourself.

The e-mail messages have subject lines like "Barack Obama pulls out from Presidential Race" or "Heath Ledger awarded posthumous Oscar," which are a bit of a change from their usual tact of offering free sexual enhancing drugs. The senders, of course, hope that you'll be intrigued enough by the messages to click on the links within and then enter your personal information. Once they have that the people who send these messages are just a few clicks away from stealing your identity. Clicking the links could also install a trojan horse application, turning your computer into a pawn to send more spam e-mails to more people! So, as always, be careful what you click on. [Source: USA Today]

More on the latest e-mail scams to watch out for here.

Got spam? Yeah, we do too. Oodles and oodles of it each day. Spammers are everywhere, and every now and again, the government nabs one (or two) and sends them to prison for their offenses. The latest feel-good story of that sort comes courtesy of 22-year-old Adam Vitale, who yeserday was sentenced to 30 months in prison for his part in a scheme to send messages to 1.2-million AOL subscribers.

In a sting operation, both Vitale and his accomplice Todd Moeller were arrested after sending out spams on behalf of government agents. In addition to the prison time, Vitale will also have to pay $180,000 directly to AOL in damages, and has pledged that he's "learned a lesson" -- something he apparently didn't do after any of his previous convictions (or the time he was caught running a prostitution ring on Craigslist but never charged). [Source: Reuters]

(Disclosure: Switched.com is owned and operated by AOL)

If you're like most e-mail users, your inbox is overflowing with a random mishmash of read and unread missives. Whether each day finds just a few or a few hundred new messages it always seems to be a challenge to keep on top of the mess. Because of this, cleaning it out feels like quite an achievement, but it's the sort of accomplishment that you've never really been able to share with others. But, a new initiative is giving you the opportunity to do just that.

Called Inbox Victory, it's a site inviting e-mail users to post pictures of themselves with their pristine mailboxes for the entire (online) world to see. It's part of a blog called Free Art & Technology that has a selection of random fun artsy stuff. The site is intended to further "research and development of creative technologies and media." We're not quite sure how this fits in, but it's a great idea, and we hope you'll share a little inbox clarity of your own. [Source: Free Art & Technology]

Pearls are the traditional gift for a 30-year anniversary so... we've found a beautiful pair of earrings for spam!

Yes, it's the 30th anniversary of spam – the e-mail kind, not the spiced canned meat.

Spam is the bane of e-mail inboxes everywhere – not quite so invasive as 419 scams but still a hassle, a nuisance, and the focal point of a never-ending battle between those who would advertise all kinds of ridiculous products (to enlarge or decrease as needed) and those who would block the annoying messages.

And although spam itself is not a computer virus or a Trojan Horse, the messages nowadays can carry nefarious code that often takes over a computer and uses it to send out (you guessed it) more spam.

The first spam message was sent out in 1978 to only 400 people using Arpanet, the precursor to the modern Internet. The sender was soundly and roundly criticized by the recipients and reported to his boss for sending his intrusive and uninvited message.

Today, spam or junk e-mail comprises 85 percent of all e-mail, which means more than 100 billion spam e-mail messages are sent every day. And despite the nuisance factor, it's nearly impossible to identify the actual sender to lodge a complaint or stop the messages. In fact, responding to spam often invites even more spam to an email account.

Spam wasn't actually called spam until 1993, when a Usenet chat administrator named Joel Furr came up with the name after watching a Monty Python skit featuring the meat treat. The big moment for spam came in 1994, when immigration lawyers Canter and Siegel sent a message to more than 6,000 Usenet discussion groups advertising their services. This is often regarded as the moment when people who used the Internet stopped behaving according to a code referred to as "netiquette" and started to see the net as a commercial playground. [Source: BBC News]

If you find spam as annoying as we do, then you'll probably enjoy this story as much as we have. Edward "Eddie" Davidson of Louisville, Colorado, has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for the crime of spamming -- among other things.

Davidson used misleading messages to get people to read his unsolicited e-mails, which were often sent to investors in the hopes of manipulating the stock market. Davidson's jail time is set to begin next month. As if that weren't enough, he also has the small matter of a $715,000 fine due to the IRS for tax evasion. But, given he earned an estimated $3.5 million for his spamming antics, something tells us he won't have much of a problem finding the cash. [Source: USAToday]

There's little more irritating than getting spam text messages on your cell phone, especially when your plan has you stuck paying for each message that comes in.

Thankfully, phone spam is a fairly isolated problem here in the U.S. In China, however, it's another story entirely, as nearly half of all the cell phone users in the country recently got hit with a flood of spam text messages.

Last week, over 200-million spam messages were sent to subscribers of China's two largest mobile providers, China Mobile and China Unicom. The messages originated from seven different advertising firms, which took advantage of security lapses at the two service providers to send out the blasts. Those advertising firms have been apparently blocked from future spam attempts, but it remains to be seen whether they'll face prosecution or not.

Here's hoping.

From BBC News

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E-mail scam artists and spammers have relied for years on using offers that dangle quick riches in return for access to personal information and bank accounts, but now these messages may be taking a turn toward the threatening. Currently making the rounds of inboxes everywhere is a new scam e-mail that insinuates bodily harm, or even death, if the recipient doesn't fork over money.

This isn't the first time Switched.com has warned about this growing problem with scam e-mail, of course, but this new more intimidating threat seems to be growing larger. (Take a look at our "Top Five E-mail Scams" piece to learn more about how to identify fraudulent e-mail and how to protect yourself.)

As reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, this new type of scam e-mail reads, in part, that the sender is "mailing you now ... just to KILL/ASSASINATE you and I have to do it as I have already been paid for that."

The e-mail continues to say that if payment is not made immediately, the sender will follow through on the threat without delay.

One of the threatening e-mails found its way to the e-mail inbox of an employee of the Post-Dispatch, who then forwarded it on to the FBI.

According to Special Agent Zachary Lowe, the scam first started appearing in 2006 and the messages are likely coming from overseas, possibly out of Eastern Europe. The first targets of the scam were white-collar workers, like doctors and lawyers, whose e-mail addresses are easy to find in ads or directories. Lowe says the threat isn't real.

As noted in the Post-Dispatch article, "This is just a new type of fraud."

The old style of scam e-mail was typically an invitation to a business opportunity or to collect lottery winnings. This new kind of scam has the same goal, just a different, and more serious, message.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Related Links:

FCC Warns of Fake Do Not Call Registry E-Mail

E-Mail Scam Threatens to Send Hitman After You

The Hitman Spam Scam

The CAN-SPAM Act, introduced in 2003, requires fines and possible prison time for those who are found to be guilty of sending non-solicited e-mails. Adteractive, which runs FreeGiftWorld.com and SamplePromotionsGroup.com, was definitely guilty, but interestingly one of the FTC Commissioners voted against applying this fine. That's because he thought $650,000 wasn't enough -- a dissenting opinion we agree with.

The FTC also slammed the company for its misleading advertising, where "free" products are often available only after people fill out multiple credit card applications or sign contracts for satellite television and the like. Buyer beware, especially if it's "free".

From BetaNews

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The battle between malicious software makers and computer security companies has taken a new turn. Spammers have turned users against themselves and against the security firms trying to protect them.

The latest security system to undergo assault by spammers is CAPTCHA, or "Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart." CAPTCHA displays a series of letters and number that are distorted and overlaid with visual artifacts (as seen above) in order to prevent automated systems from sending spam, hijacking services, and overtaking forums and blogs. You've probably seen these optical illusions countless times when signing up for a variety of services.


The new tool -- also known as malware -- in the spammers box of tricks is a PC program that shows pictures of a woman in increasingly scanty states of undress each time users correctly spell out these scrambled images of letters. This malware program arrives via e-mail and shows up on your computer as soon as you open the Internet Explorer Web browser.

The woman, called Mellisa, is currently being used to help spammers break through the protection on Yahoo! Mail sign ups, but it's not hard to imagine its use becoming more widespread soon.

We shouldn't have to say it, but here's how you can prevent these types of malware scams from infecting your computer: Run spyware removal software and virus scans on a regular basis, don't open e-mails or attachments from unfamiliar sources, and immediately remove any software if you don't know where it came from.

From The BBC

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Back in August, we reported on a new form of spam that was sweeping inboxes around the world: the use of PDF attachments to hide product pitches from spam filters. That seeming flood of spammy attachments was apparently more of a wave, which passed quickly and seemed to be gone. But now the PDF spam scourge is back, with hundreds of thousands of these attachment e-mails being received over the past few weeks. And, troublingly, the PDF attachments in those e-mails are infected with viruses that can lead to trouble down the line for your computer (and your personal information).

If opened, the PDFs use a flaw in the Acrobat Reader PDF viewer that enables the sender to install so-called malicious software, or malware. This malware actually goes out and downloads, then installs, other malware from other machines. Thankfully these programs don't appear to actually impact or corrupt the files on your machine, but they can be used to send that personal data to someone, and can also be used to turn your computer into a so-called zombie, which means it can be controlled remotely to participate in the sorts of attacks that were levied against Estonia in May.

So, as always, watch those attachments. If you don't know what the PDF contains or who sent it, don't open it.

From Network World

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About the only creature lower on the totem pole than the nefarious telemarketer is the spammer. With these creeps, you can't even take solace in the fact that they're only doing their job, which is why it fills us with a sick sense of giddiness every time one of these obnoxious mass-e-mailers gets tossed in the clink.

The latest bozos to get nailed for filling our In-boxes with junk e-mail are Jeffrey A. Kilbride, 41, of Venice, California, and James R. Schaffer, 41, of Paradise Valley, Arizona, who should be spending roughly the next five years for e-mailing graphic porn images advertising hard-core sex sites. Anyone who received the e-mail was able to view them.

Kilbride was sentenced to 72 months behind bars, while Schaffer will be spending the next 63 alongside him. The difference in sentences is due to Kilbride being charged with obstruction of justice for trying to prevent a witness from testifying against the duo. Otherwise both men were charged with sending spam messages with forged headers and domain names, conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and obscenity -- all under the Can-Spam Act.

In addition to their jail sentences, Kilbride and Schaffer were fined $100,000 and ordered to pay $77,500 to AOL (Switched.com's parent company). They also had to cough up $1.1 million in illegal proceeds.

Anything that prevents more spam from coming to our In-box is a-okay with us.

How about you? Do you think these guys got what they deserved, or is the sentence too harsh? Let us know.

From Information Week

Related Links:

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• Study Claims 83% of All E-Mail is Spam
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While many e-mail scams are easily spotted due to their relative ridiculousness and are seemingly safe to simply ignore, one recent scam has its recipients not only taking it seriously but has them in fear for their life.

The e-mail in question reads: "I have been paid some ransom in advance to terminate you with some reasons listed to me by my employer."

And they don't mean "terminate" in the Donald Trump "you're fired" sense. In this case, "terminate" is used in the 'Sopranos', or perhaps more accurately, the 'Terminator,' "you're dead" sense.

Yes, this particular scam claims that you are to be rubbed out should you fail to make a payment of several thousand dollars and you are to tell no friends or relatives as they may be in ones who called for your ultimate demise. Naturally.

Despite being initially frightening, this scam revealed one small problem that had people who got the message smelling a rat: The e-mail gives no deadline or instructions on how to make the payment that would save your life, which kind of defeats the point. Apparently, these particular frauds aren't too bright.

After doing some digging, Harry Whitworth, a 72-year-old New Jersey man who got the threatening e-mail demanding $8,000 from him, found a similar scam out of Arizona with almost exactly the same wording and spelling errors in the message he had received.

According to the FBI, 115 similar cases were reported around the country within a month last winter, with only the amount of money demanded varying, which went up to $80,000.

First our credit is bad, then certain male body parts are too small, and now we're marked for death! Damn you, Internet!

From AP

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For most Internet users, retrieving wanted e-mail messages is like hacking through the dense underbrush of a rainforest using a Jason Voorhees-sized machete. But, instead of vines and tree branches, it's pitches for stock deals and Canadian penis pills you're hacking through.

Though junk mail is a modern inconvenience we've mostly gotten used to, it's no less shocking to learn that spam now accounts for a whopping 83% of all e-mail messages sent and received worldwide -- this according to a new study by e-mail security firm IronPort Systems. That's 60 billion to 150 billion bogus messages every single day.

Here are a few ways of deflecting some of that garbage:

• Keep two e-mail addresses –- one for personal correspondence and one for Web sites that request your e-mail address, like when you're shopping or signing up for contests.
• Do not use your real e-mail address on your personal Web site, blog, MySpace page or Facebook page. Ditto for Craigslist or any other type of online classified ad. That's because spammers use programs called bots, which are constantly trawling the Internet in search of new addresses to hammer with junk mail.
• Services like Dodgeit.com, myTrashMail.com and others let you create temporary, disposable e-mail addresses for signing into sites and forums that require an e-mail address to enter.

Find more tips for blocking spam at GeekSugar and Wired.

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• Spammers' New Methods of Deception Uncovered
• Majority of Americans Can't Spot E-mail Scam
• The Hit Man Spam Scam

Spammers, while evil, are a crafty bunch. They constantly adapt to the security firms who attempt to stay ahead of these scam artists. It used to be that spammers were simply the junk mailers of the electronic world, assuring you were aware of the latest deals on 'personal enhancement' devices. Then viruses and spyware embedded in HTML and images became a new threat. In January, image-based spam made up 50 percent of all spam. Since then, security firms have figured out ways to identify and block the images, and image-based spam has dropped to just eight percent of the total.

Now that spam blockers and security companies have caught on, spammers have moved on to their next method of attack: rogue file attachments.

In three short months, PDF (Portable Document Format) attachments have gone from non-existent as a form of spam to a surprising eight percent. Storm, a virus that disguises itself as an electronic greeting card, fools spam blockers since the e-mail looks like a harmless nice note from a friend. Even Excel files and Zip archives are becoming tools of the e-scammer, each capable of being embedded with spyware and "mail bots," programs that use your computer to send spam.

Always remember: Never open attachments from untrusted sources anyway.

From USA Today

Related links:

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If you received an e-mail today from a deposed Nigerian prince offering you millions of dollars in exchange for just a few thousand up front, would you immediately recognize this as one of the oldest e-mail scams in the book? (So old, in fact, that it led 'Dateline' and Chris Hanson to franchise 'To Catch a Predator' into 'To Catch a Con Man.')

If you didn't catch the scam, you're not alone. A recent study of 2,482 American adults found that 58 percent of us are totally unaware of scams such as this one. What's more, a surprising 17 percent of adults admitted to falling victim to an online scam in the last year. Of those victims, 81 percent admitted it was their own fault by opening unsolicited e-mail or sending personal information to companies that they believed were legitimate.

Microsoft seems to think that the lack of actual physical visibility is part of what makes us so susceptible to online threats. A man with a gun is visible, while a guy trying to steal your credit card info via a fake e-mail from eBay is not. Microsoft does offer some good tips for slightly safer computing, like keeping your anti-virus software and firewall up to date.

Fortunately for you, Switched.com has put together this list of the top five e-mail scams to help you flag a scheme as junk mail before you and your bank account fall victim to it.

From Ars Technica

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• The Hitman Spam Scam
• Top 5 E-Mail Scams
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